NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Travis Prior / INPHO Travis Prior / INPHO / INPHO

• Budget 2025 is set to include a €2 billion cost of living package and number of once-off payments, The Journal learned. 
• There were fresh calls for an investigation into allegations that paedophile Michael Shine abused children in an orphanage in Drogheda, County Louth. 
• Two Sinn Féin press officers resigned after they gave references for a party colleague who was being investigated for child sex offences.
• Penalties for knife offences increased from today, following the signing of a commencement order by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee. 
• Taoiseach Simon Harris defended appearing on Ryan Tubridy’s podcast saying that he does not feel it is bad taste given the manner of the broadcaster’s departure from RTÉ.
• An eighth man was remanded in custody following a case of alleged false imprisonment of a woman in Dublin. 
• The High Court overturned a decision by An Bord Pleanála denying permission for a liquid natural gas terminal in Co Kerry.

INTERNATIONAL

A man paddles a canoe to rescue residents and their belongings at a flooded apartment complex in Atlanta. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#LEBANON: Israeli tanks massed on the border with Lebanon and international calls rang out urging against a ground invasion. 

#USA: The man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump on a Florida golf course pleaded not guilty to federal charges.

#HELENE: The death toll from Hurricane Helene, which battered the southeastern United states over the weekend, rose to at least 100. 

#RIP: Much-loved actor, singer and songwriter Kris Kristofferson was remembered after his death. 

PARTING SHOT

ON FRIDAY EVENING, Israeli jets dropped as many as eighty bombs on south Beirut, levelling several multi-storey buildings in the densely populated residential neighbourhood of Haret Hreik. The massive strike was heard and felt across the city, with windows in apartments miles away shaking.

Panic quickly spread throughout Haret Hreik, a Hezbollah stronghold that is also home to tens of thousands of predominantly Lebanese Shia, and which had already been struck several times since July. The Israeli military warned that more neighbourhoods in south Beirut would be hit and that residents should leave immediately.

As night fell, there was a mass exodus from southern Beirut. People walked with backpacks and pet birds, or crammed into cars with mattresses and blankets piled high on top and scrambled to other, safer parts of Beirut. Soon after, several strikes hit southern Beirut during a night when few slept.

Read Hannah McCarthy’s full report from Lebanon here.